Battle Fatigue
by Cailus Griffin
Summary: The Battle of Dxun is one of the most infamous battles in galactic history. In the middle of the carnage, Caila, the future Jedi Exile, faces an impossible choice as she is pushed to the limit of her powers. Four months of constant combat takes it toll, even on a Jedi Knight.


**Author's Note: **This is inspired by that bit on Korriban in the tomb where the Exile relives a a skirmish on Dxun. It's not exactly the same, but hopefully my take on it is okay. Further, obviously this is my OC Exile, not Meetra Surik. With that said, enjoy.

* * *

Once upon time, before the Republic and Mandalorians, Dxun had been green. Caila remembered that. She'd visited the moon once with Kavar many years before, and had been astonished by just how many different varieties of green there could be. Light green, dark green, vermillion, almost-blue-but-not-quite green. She'd only a teenager at the time, barely fifteen years old, eyes full of wonder at the strange, savage and ultimately beautiful world.

Now it was red. Red with fire. Red with blaster shots. Red with blood.

Four months on this planet, and Caila had seen more varieties of red then she could bear. Now, at the bottom of one of Dxun's many gullies, she saw a new one as a Twi'lek's guts spilled onto the ground. The corporal was already dead, her essence steadily draining into the Force. Odd. Purple skin, but red guts.

The other Republic troopers around Caila paid the corpse no heed as they stumbled about, tending to the wounded and distributing ammo. They'd been with Caila for three weeks now, and were long used to the sight of corpses. Half of their battalion were corpses right now, scattered around the planet on various battlefields.

The senior officer left, a young captain, approached Caila wearily. "Private Tunny-er, Tully, sorry-got through General. Aurek Base needs us to…to advance. To take the Mandalorian position directly ahead, hold it, and wait for orders."

Caila watched her troops passively. "Did Revan mention how well the offensive is proceeding?"

The captain's eyes said it all. "No word."

In fairness, she hadn't expected him to. Revan was always very private with his strategies, even in the middle of a battle. However, this particular strategy was beyond her. Hundreds of Republic units, just like Caila's, were assaulting Mandalorian positions all along the front line. Revan had personally assigned individual Jedi to their battalions, but limited numbers meant that there were still left thousands of troops without the benefit of the superhuman warriors.

Not that Caila felt particularly superhuman right now. She was _tired_. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept, taken a shower, or even sat down. The Force energized her body so she could keep going, but it didn't nullify the pain or the desperate fatigue. Without the Force, Caila suspected she'd collapse.

The horrible thing, the worst thing of all, was that there was no way of knowing how the battle was progressing. Between the Republic base and the Mandalorian fortress the landscape was splintered with countless gullies and valleys; open fields and clearings were a rarity. Although Caila and her troops could hear the endless pounding of artillery, glimpse aero- and starfighters zooming overhead and smell the ozone given off by blasterfire, they couldn't actually _see_ anything.

And that, unfortunately, made this situation all the more impossible. She'd lost three quarters of her people in the last three days just getting to this point, and the nature of battlefield comns meant Revan had no way of knowing that.

"Did the scouts find it then?" she asked, and the captain nodded gingerly.

"Yes General. It's on the other side of a ravine, about five hundred meters ahead around the bend. There's a natural bridge to the other side, but it's…er…narrow."

Caila frowned. "Why wouldn't they destroy the bridge? They know we outnumber them five to one. Unless…" She paused, and closed her eyes as she realised. "Mines."

The captain nodded patiently, having already come to the same conclusion. "Scouts confirm it's clear until the ravine, so we can move up whenever you like."

"Then move up now," Caila ordered. She glanced again at the Twi'lek corpse as she walked by, then shrugged to herself.

* * *

The advance was uneventful up until the ravine. As always, Caila led the formation, her violet double-bladed lightsaber lit and ready. She would've liked to hold it in front of her in a guard position to deflect any potential sniper shot, but found she could barely lift the hilt to chest height, let alone keep it there. So she held the lit blade casually at waist height, hoping none of the troops noticed.

The bridge was just as the captain had said; long, narrow, and mined. The mines themselves were invisible, but Caila could sense the electronic circuits through the Force; one of her more unique talents, even among Jedi. The ravine, however, was not as wide as she'd thought.

As the battalion halted, she waved the captain forward. "That gap is jumpable," she muttered without preamble.

The captain blinked, glanced at the ravine, back at Caila, then back at the ravine. It was easily ten meters wide, and fifty deep. "General?"

Caila attempted a smile, but it was a weak one. "I'm a Jedi, remember? I was jumping further than that when I was ten years old. You stay here, I'll attack. If I find the Mando with the mine controls, I'll deactivate them and you can come and help. If not…I'll find it when they're all dead."

The captain continued to stare at her general in apparent shock. Then, after a moment, she seemed to come to an internal decision. "You want to take on that entire bunker-a dozen Mandos-on your own?"

Caila nodded, her smile fading.

Then the captain slapped her. It wasn't a light slap either; the petite Corellian captain had built up some serious muscle in the military, enough to force the General back a step. "If you can't stop me slapping you," the captain said slowly, "then you don't have a chance in hell of deflecting a blaster bolt. Or a vibroblade. With respect General, you're exhausted. If you go over there, you die."

Outrage filled the General. She wanted to slap the captain back, Force push her onto her backside, let her see just how weak her General was…but she stopped herself. The anger brought new energy to her limbs however, and she embraced it.

"Fair enough," Caila muttered with a glare. "Sappers, then. Get everyone to provide covering fire for the sappers. I'll protect them as they defuse the mines."

The captain shook her head. "With respect, again, no. You wouldn't be able to."

The glare intensified. "You're talking to one of the best blaster-deflection experts in the entire Jedi Order," she said through gritted teeth. "Probably _the _best. I can do this."

The captain shrugged. "Our scouts reported that the Mandos have a heavy repeater set up over there. A hundred bolts per minute. Do you really think you can defend yourself and the sappers against that?"

A large part of Caila, the defiant part, wanted to say _yes_. The honest part of her won through, however. Kavar had always said only a foolish Jedi gets cut down by a blaster, and she was no fool. "No," she replied bitterly, lowering her eyes. "But unless you have a better plan…"

The captain grinned that cocky grin the Corellians seemed to have trademarked. "Yes sir, I do. Let us do our jobs. The sappers defuse the mines, we provide covering fire, you stay back and be inspiring." She paused. "Please, General. I don't want to be the unit commander that loses a Jedi, especially you. Give the order."

Caila sighed. Her legs felt like lead, and she could barely feel her fingers even as they were clasped around the long lightsaber hilt. She'd forgotten she was holding it. Hell…she'd forgotten she'd deactivated it. Caila glanced around at the beleaguered troops, who were busy lobbing insults and angry looks at the other side of the ravine…and she relented.

"Do it captain," she whispered. "And may the Force be with you."

* * *

It was fate's cruel irony that mere minutes later, as the Republic soldiers prepared to attack, an almighty thunderclap split the sky. Rain, thick and heavy, poured down upon them. The troopers swore irritably, cursing the Force and various other deities, but they nevertheless assembled into formation; a tight column, with the captain and the sappers at its forefront. Only half of the fifty or so troopers were in it; the other half were spread out along the ravine, carefully arrayed against various kinds of cover. The Mandalorians had yet to fire a shot, and indeed could not even be seen by the Republic soldiers. They were there, though. There was no doubt.

Finally, the captain gave the order, and Caila realised: the Corellian bitch had lied to her. Rather than carefully advance up the bridge, with the sappers deactivating each mine in turn, the entire column started running. They ran at full speed, reached the bridge, and all hell broke loose.

Bright explosions shredded the sappers in an instant. Simultaneously, in perfect defilade, a storm of red blaster bolts shredded the troopers. The survivors roared, firing right back, running into the explosions fearlessly. It took only a few seconds to cross the ten-meter gap, but they died and died and died, each mine claiming its victim with a fiery embrace.

Finally they broke through. The captain was the first, having somehow survived, and she disappeared from view, yelling at the troopers charging behind her.

It took a moment for Caila to regain control of her senses. Bright, hot fury coursed through her veins, giving her strength. The lightsaber was out and lit in a flash. Yelling her own battle cry at the troops on her side of the ravine, she leapt across the gap, and the slaughter began.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later and it was over. Every single Mandalorian was dead. For that matter, nearly every Republic soldier was dead too. Out of the fifty two troopers who'd started the fight, only eleven remained. Eleven. From a battalion that, when it had come off the transport, had numbered two hundred.

The captain was not among them. Somewhere amongst the melee a Mandalorian had sliced her head off with a vibroblade. They couldn't find her torso, and assumed it had fallen into the ravine. The wounded troopers didn't bother calling for a medic, knowing there were none to be found. Caila walked between each of the four wounded soldiers, treating their wounds as best she could with a combination of the Force and scavenged Mandalorian medpacs. The anger that had sustained her throughout the fight was gone, as was the vigour it had given her. It took an immense amount of effort to simply stay on her feet; she'd already given up keeping her eyes open, relying instead on the Force.

"Uh…ma'am? General?" Caila turned to a young Iridonian, and opened her eyes for his sake. "I contacted Headquarters ma'am, gave them the 'mission success' code. I included the 'heavy casualties' code too. I hope that was okay."

She nodded wordlessly in reply. Then her exhausted mind stopped and realised what he'd said. "How did you get a signal through the…the…" Caila paused, trying to think of the word.

"The interference?" the Iridonian shrugged. "Not too difficult. Just had to double the power output for each code sequence. The designers of the comns unit didn't think to include an overload option."

"Not too difficult…" Caila mumbled. She raised a hand and wiped the mud off the engineer's nameplate. "Well, Sergeant Bao-Dur, good work. Take up a rifle and keep sentry. If anything not wearing Republic colours comes near you, shoot it."

The sergeant nodded and headed out into the forest around the bunker. Caila desperately wanted to take a nap on one of the larger stones, but she had only a half dozen able-bodied soldiers left; if the Mandos came again, they didn't have a chance. Reluctantly she folded her legs and began to meditate, focusing on the forest around them. If anything dangerous approached, she'd sense it.

As she did so, Caila wondered at what had happened earlier. How she'd been able to jump the gap, fight the Mandos. Kavar would've called it the Dark Side.

Surrounded by corpses, and with rain soaking her head to toe, Caila found she didn't care.


End file.
